(1) Existing law creates the Lithium Subaccount within the Salton Sea Restoration Fund and continuously appropriates moneys in the subaccount to the Natural Resources Agency for restoration projects and grants for community engagement, public amenity, capital improvement, or community-benefit projects at or around the Salton Sea and those communities impacted by the Salton Sea’s restoration and development.
This bill would rename the subaccount as the Salton Sea Lithium Fund, which the bill would establish in the State Treasury.
(2) Existing law establishes an Independent
System Operator (ISO) as a nonprofit public benefit corporation and requires the ISO to ensure efficient use and reliable operation of the electrical transmission grid.
The California Public Records Act requires a public agency, defined to mean a state or local agency, to make its public records available for public inspection and to make copies available upon request and payment of a fee, unless the public records are exempt from disclosure. The act makes specified records exempt from disclosure and provides that disclosure by a state or local agency of a public record that is otherwise exempt constitutes a waiver of the exemptions.
This bill would specify that a disclosure made through the sharing of information between the ISO and a state agency does not constitute a waiver of the exemptions.
Existing law prohibits
information furnished to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) by a public utility, a business that is a subsidiary or affiliate of a public utility, or a corporation that holds a controlling interest in a public utility from being open to public inspection or made public, except as specified.
This bill would authorize a present officer or employee of the PUC to share information with the ISO pursuant to an agreement to treat the shared information as confidential.
Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.
This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
(3) The Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund Act of 2020 authorizes the Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (bank), under the Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund Program, to provide financial assistance to any eligible sponsor or participating party for eligible climate catalyst projects, as defined, either directly to the sponsor or participating party or to a lending or financial institution, as specified.
This bill would additionally specify that clean energy transmission projects are climate catalyst projects eligible for financial assistance under the Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund Program. The bill would create the Clean Energy Transmission Financing Account in the Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund for purposes of repayment of financing under the program for the clean energy transmission projects.
This bill would also specify that projects that avoid, reduce, use, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are climate catalyst projects eligible for financial assistance under the Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund Program, as provided.
(4) The California Building Standards Law requires any building standard adopted or proposed by state agencies to be submitted to, and approved or adopted by, the California Building Standards Commission before codification in the California Building Standards Code.
This bill would require the commission, on or before July 1, 2023, to consider whether to adopt specified consensus safety standards. If the commission does not adopt the consensus safety standards, then the bill would prohibit a state or local building code from prohibiting the use of a refrigerant listed as acceptable under
specified provisions of the federal Clean Air Act if the use is installed in accordance with specified standards, effective July 1, 2024.
(5) Existing law creates the Demand Side Grid Support Program and requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to implement and administer the program to incentivize dispatchable customer load reduction and backup generation operation as on-call emergency supply and load reduction for the state’s electrical grid during extreme events. Under existing law, all energy customers in the state are eligible to participate in the program, except those customers that are eligible to participate in certain demand response or emergency load reduction programs.
This bill would instead make only those customers enrolled in those demand response or emergency load reduction programs
ineligible for the program. The bill would authorize the Energy Commission, in consultation with the PUC, to adopt additional participation requirements or limitations.
Existing law prohibits the Energy Commission from certifying a site and related facility if, among other things, the site is in a park, wilderness, scenic or natural reserve, area for wildlife protection, recreation, historic preservation, natural preservation areas, or estuary in an essentially natural and undeveloped state, except where the commission finds that the use is not inconsistent with the primary uses of those lands and that there will be no substantial adverse environmental impact, or the site has not been previously disturbed.
This bill would delete that exception and would clarify that, for those purposes, “disturbed” includes site clearing, excavating, grading, or other manipulation of the terrain.
(6) Existing law requires the Energy Commission to undertake various actions in furtherance of meeting the state’s clean energy and pollution reduction objectives.
This bill would require the Energy Commission to establish and administer the Climate Innovation Program to provide financial incentives, as defined, to California-headquartered companies, as defined, for developing and commercializing technologies that can either help California meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and achieve its climate goals, or enable the state to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change, as specified. The bill would require the program to include a term requiring the recipient to repay the full amount plus an additional 20% if there is a liquidity event, as defined, except as specified. The bill would also require recipients of a financial incentive to be a
California-headquartered company for the entire term of the financial incentive and for 10 years after the financial incentive ends.
This bill would require the Energy Commission to establish the following clean energy programs: (A) the Industrial Grid Support and Decarbonization Program to provide financial incentives for the implementation of projects at industrial facilities to provide significant benefits to the electrical grid, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and achieve the state’s clean energy goals and to exceed compliance requirements; (B) the Food Production Investment Program to provide financial incentives for the implementation of projects to accelerate the adoption of advanced energy technologies and other decarbonization technologies at facilities to support electrical grid reliability and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from those facilities; (C) the Hydrogen Program to provide financial
incentives to in-state hydrogen projects for the demonstration or scale-up of the production, processing, delivery, storage, or end use of hydrogen; (D) a direct install program to fund the installation of energy efficient electric appliances, energy efficiency measures, demand flexibility measures, wiring and panel upgrades, building infrastructure upgrades, efficient air conditioning systems, ceiling fans, and other measures to protect against extreme heat, where appropriate, and remediation and safety measures to facilitate the installation of new technologies; (E) a statewide incentive program for low-carbon building technologies; (F) a program to support offshore wind infrastructure improvements to advance the capabilities of California waterfront facilities to support the buildout of offshore wind facilities and maximize the economic and environmental benefits of an offshore wind industry in California; and (G) the Carbon Removal Innovation Program to provide financial incentives for eligible projects
that advance technologies for direct air capture of atmospheric carbon.
This bill would require the Energy Commission to administer the Voluntary Offshore Wind and Coastal Resources Protection Program to support state activities that complement, and are in furtherance of, federal laws related to the development of offshore wind facilities, as provided. The bill would create the Voluntary Offshore Wind and Coastal Resources Protection Fund and the Private Donations Account in the fund. The bill would continuously appropriate moneys in the fund and the account for purposes of the program, thereby making an appropriation. The bill would authorize the Energy Commission to require a form to be submitted and signed under penalty of perjury to carry out the purposes of the program. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(7) Existing law prohibits a public utility, other than certain common carriers, from selling, leasing, assigning, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of its property that is necessary or useful in the performance of its duties to the public without first having secured authorization or approval from the PUC to do so, as specified. The PUC, by order, authorized specified electrical corporations to convey operational control of designated transmission lines and associated facilities to the Independent System Operator. Under existing law, the final orders and decisions of the PUC are conclusive in all collateral actions or proceedings.
This bill would expressly require those specified electrical corporations to participate in the Independent System Operator and prohibit all electrical corporations from withdrawing their facilities from the operational control of the Independent System Operator without commission approval.
Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because certain provisions of this bill are within the act and a violation of a commission action implementing the bill’s requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(8) Existing law requires the PUC to require the administration, until January 1, 2026, of a self-generation incentive program to increase the deployment of distributed generation resources and energy storage systems. Existing law authorizes the PUC, in consultation with the Energy Commission, to authorize an annual collection, not to exceed a specified amount, for the self-generation incentive program through December 31, 2024. Existing law specifies that incentives available under the program are limited to
distribution energy resources that the PUC, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board, determines will achieve reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, as provided. Existing law requires the PUC to administer incentives for solar technologies separately, as provided.
This bill would delete the requirement that the PUC administers solar technologies separately from the program. The bill would specify that the limitation on the eligibility for incentives under the program to distributed energy resources applies to incentives that are funded by the authorized annual collection. The bill would require the PUC, in administering the program, to use funds that are appropriated by the Legislature, as provided, for the purposes of providing incentives to eligible residential customers who install behind-the-meter energy storage systems or solar photovoltaic systems paired with energy storage systems.
Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing the above-described requirements would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(9) Existing law requires each local publicly owned electric utility serving end-use customers to meet the most recent minimum planning reserve and reliability criteria approved by the Board of Trustees of the Western Systems Coordinating Council or the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.
This bill would require the Energy Commission, on or before December 31, 2023, to develop recommendations about approaches to determine an
appropriate minimum planning reserve margin for local publicly owned electric utilities within the ISO balancing authority area sufficient to ensure each local publicly owned electric utility is adequately accounting for its contribution to reliability in that balancing authority area, as provided. The bill would require local publicly owned electric utilities to use the recommendations in conformance with meeting the most recent minimum planning reserve and reliability criteria approved by the Board of Trustees of the Western Systems Coordinating Council or the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. By imposing additional duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(10) Existing law requires the Department of Water Resources, from October 31, 2022, to October 31, 2026, inclusive, to submit to the Energy Commission applications for certification of sites on which specified
facilities, including certain electrical generation facilities, energy storage systems, and points of interconnection, are located.
This bill would limit the applicability of that requirement to submit those applications to the Energy Commission to only those specified facilities and revise the descriptions of those facilities, as specified. The bill would require that those facilities that use any form of fossil fuel only operate as necessary to respond to extreme events, as defined.
(11) Existing law, the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority Act, establishes the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority. The act authorizes, until January 1, 2026, the authority to provide financial assistance in the form of a sales and use tax exclusion for projects, as defined, including those that promote California-based manufacturing,
California-based jobs, advanced manufacturing, the reduction of greenhouse gases, or the reduction in air and water pollution or energy consumption. The act prohibits the sales and use tax exclusions from exceeding $100,000,000 for each calendar year. The act requires the authority to evaluate a project application based on specified criteria, including, among others, the extent to which the project will create new, or result in the loss of, permanent jobs in the state.
This bill would, for the 2022, 2023, and 2024 calendar years, authorize the authority to provide an additional $15,000,000 of sales and use tax exclusions for projects that manufacture, refine, extract, process, or recover lithium. In evaluating those project applications, the bill would authorize the authority to consider, in addition to the existing criteria described above, specific criteria relating to relocation of projects to California from states that have enacted certain legislation, as
described.
Existing law requires a bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements.
The bill would also include additional information required for a bill authorizing a new tax expenditure.
The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law authorizes counties and cities to impose local sales and use taxes in conformity with the Sales and Use Tax Law, and existing laws authorize districts, as specified, to impose transactions and use taxes in accordance with the Transactions and Use Tax Law, which generally conforms to the Sales and Use Tax Law. Amendments to the Sales and Use Tax Law are automatically incorporated into the local tax laws.
Existing law
requires the state to reimburse counties and cities for revenue losses caused by the enactment of sales and use tax exemptions.
This bill would provide that, notwithstanding Section 2230 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, no appropriation is made and the state shall not reimburse any local agencies for sales and use tax revenues lost by them pursuant to certain sections of this bill.
(12) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.
(13) This bill would declare that it is to take
effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.
(14) This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.